Posted
by
Soulskillon Saturday June 28, 2008 @05:09AM
from the facepalm dept.

Ars Technica is running a story about recently enacted legislation in Louisiana which will allow school board officials to "approve supplemental classroom materials specifically for the critique of scientific theories" such as evolution and global warming. The full text of the Act (PDF) is also available. Quoting:
"The text of the [Louisiana Science Education Act] suggests that it's intended to foster critical thinking, calling on the state Board of Education to 'assist teachers, principals, and other school administrators to create and foster an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories.' Unfortunately, it's remarkably selective in its suggestion of topics that need critical thinking, as it cites scientific subjects 'including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.'"

I think its encouraging that the state of Lousiana is supporting role playing in their school environments. Being a fan of D&D for more than two decades, having a whole bunch of people discuss fiction on such a large scale can only benefit the FRP community as a whole. I am always amazed at the level of depth grown men can achieve talking about a fictious being and the possible actions such a fictious being can take against the people of the real world. Even better is the discussion of the fictious creatures that said fictious being can send to do its combat. Though I have yet to hear these people discuss statistics, I'm sure they will given this new input into the academic settings, where things are weighed and measured for accuracy.

Seriously, though, LACK of government wasn't the problem. There was plenty of aid from private organizations and citizens that was just piling up while FEMA turned them away. It's troublesome that whenever something goes wrong people immediately jump to the conclusion that we need more government intervention, especially in this case where government bureaucracy so blatantly impeded ready and available aid from reaching the city.

Is your understanding of politics seriously so rudimentary that you actually think the Bushes and libertarians have anything in common? I suggest you read up on a history of the Republican Party--particularly a fellow by the name of Barry Goldwater--before you start spouting such nonsense as libertarianism having anything in common with Bushism or anarchy. Maybe then you'd learn that good will has no correlation to preferred size of government, or that the current Republican Party has had little in common with its libertarian history for the last twenty years.

Most of those happened a long time ago. You can't hold that against the people who are in charge today. I'm sure everyone on/. has at least a dozen murderers among their ancestors, but I don't see you complaining about that.

A long time ago, like...less than 50 years? I'm sure I've got murderers in my ancestry but not within 50 years. Don't be obtuse.

The biggest problem with all these idiots is that they don't know what the world theory means.

All theses right wing religious people try to play off that the word 'theory' means the same thing as a 'guess'. Thats simply not the case

(n) theory; a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena.

Gravity is a theory for fucks sakes, nobody questions why we stick to the surface of the planet! Evolution is under attack because it directly contradicts the Christian's creation myth, where as god was remarkably silent on topics like why we don't float off the planet.

I'm continually stunned on how bullshit laws like this keep popping up in a society that spells out a specific separation of church and state. Don't get me wrong, teach your creation myth all you want, but do it in a religious studies class, not a science class.

And for the record yes I'd stop calling it a myth if any evidence to the contrary was brought forward.

The biggest problem with all these idiots is that they don't know what the world theory means.

All theses right wing religious people try to play off that the word 'theory' means the same thing as a 'guess'. Thats simply not the case

(n) theory; a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena.

Gravity is a theory for fucks sakes, nobody questions why we stick to the surface of the planet! Evolution is under attack because it directly contradicts the Christian's creation myth, where as god was remarkably silent on topics like why we don't float off the planet.

I'm continually stunned on how bullshit laws like this keep popping up in a society that spells out a specific separation of church and state. Don't get me wrong, teach your creation myth all you want, but do it in a religious studies class, not a science class.

And for the record yes I'd stop calling it a myth if any evidence to the contrary was brought forward.

Exactly... and to take it further, evolution is a theory, but creationism is not even a theory. At BEST it's a hypothesis.

Actually, it doesn't even qualify as a hypothesis in the scope of scientific inquiry. To be a hypothesis, there must be no assumption of truth (ha!) and it must be testable, more specifically there must be a criteria by which it can be proven wrong.

The litmus for whether a proposition should be remotely considered by science is the answer to a very simple question: What evidence, what experimental results would it take for this idea to be rejected?

All the reasons so many people believe can be attributed to mass delusions or hope or inability to deal with reality or avoidance of the nature of death or the need to enforce life-extending behaviors at an early age. Evolution can be used to describe how cults like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Satanism, Paganism, and all the other isms evolved.

If someone wants to delude themselves that there is some all mighty entity that loves them no matter what and that even if they die this thing called a soul will continue, that's their choice. Delusions are very easy to foster and keep going, and spread to your children. If that makes it easier for someone to live their life and feel that they have worth, that's their problem and their wasted energy. I don't have any need to believe in a fairy tale to find value in my life or purpose. Or deal with the fact that when I die, I'm dead and nothing survives that isn't biodegradable.

Delusional people should be not allowed to use their delusions to decide what public policy is.

Actually, evolution does not contradict creationism. It only contradicts some people's interpretation of creationism. Creationism only states that God created everything. It does not in any way describe how God created anything. It does not rule out expected incremental and not so incremental changing. It does not rule out some things being created after others. It does not rule out species changing over time.

These people who fight evolution are truly ignorant. They are actually insulting their own God. As they claim God must have created everything at one step, they are also inherently claiming God could not/would not have created a dynamic system that modified itself over time to present/overcome different challenges as time went on.

If you believe in God, give God credit. Evolution sounds exactly like something God would have put in play. Read the Bible more closely. One of the consistent things in the Bible is God changing things to present new challenges to mankind. Beyond that, if God did not want evolution, then why the heck did God put genes in everyone as the basis for pro-creative continuation?? It is hard to believe that God based the transmission of life on genes unless God had the express concept of evolution in mind in the first place.

Remember, God knows everything. He set this ball in motion, God knows how his work *works* and where it will go. Evolution might throw a wrench in a simpleton's concept of creation (we are all simpletons compared to an omniscient God), but that only goes to prove how little we understand the world we live in.

Apologies if I am misquoting, but I'll go with Henri Theil: "models are to be used, not believed".

Real science isn't about belief. When scientists try to advocate for teaching any theory (yes, even gravity) as a belief system, they get sucked into a debate that is not winnable -- exactly what the creationists want.

The justification for teaching evolution or any science is that it works, not that it is True. Evolution doesn't have to explain everything; it just has to follow scientific methods and explain more than another scientific theory. We'll still have to deal with people who claim creationism or intelligent design is science, but so far we've done ok when that is the debate.

The morality or ethical worth of scientific "facts" has to be dealt with in a different framework -- one where religion is quite relevant. And we should be advocating for schools to teach religious studies -- somewhere other than in science class.

Maybe if we could at least get people to understand that science and religion deal with different phenomena, we could make some progress.

Yes, I know that eventually science confronts some of the same cosmic questions, but it does so in a completely different approach, one that cannot and should not seek Truth.

Perhaps a class "How to deal with the willfully ignorant" that analyzes the various religions of the world and teaches the students to not bother with logic or rationality when dealing with an adult who believes in imaginary friends and life after death in the absence of any evidence.

Religion 'confronts' nothing. It's the produce of semi-savage cultures. Hell, the ancient Hebrews were a bunch of genocidal wackos who destroyed whole city states...men and boy children, saving the women for themselves...by order of their 'god'. That's the basis of most of Western Religion. Coarse, ignorant, cowardly and hateful. We must be teaching our children how to deal with the kinds of semi-evolved who willfully believe such schlock.

But if funds are appropriated for materials criticising the theory of evolution, and knowing the common critiques and how plausible they sound to the uneducated despite being completely and utterly wrong (or even damned lies), I don't think science will be given fair treatment.

However, I don't really care.
As far as I'm concerned, any school system may teach whatever the hell they want to, and parents may or may not enrol their children in such schools.
If they are taught crap, they will remain uneducated. Or the quality of universities will drop to accomodate them.
Natural selection works in mysterious ways, and in the long run, this kind of crap will prove to be either irrelevant, or so detrimental to your schools that you will eventually be bought out by the Chinese and kept as cheap, uneducated labour force.

So yeah, go ahead, teach your kids crap. Teach them that critique without any foundation in reality is good. Teach them empty rhetoric. Hell, teach them religion, while you're at it.
People who care about education will put their kids in private schools. Or move away. Or both.
The rest will get approximately what they pay for.

And yes, I'm bitter about public schools (not in the British sense, mind you), and I intend to start a private school in my country. Someday.

Well the reason western is percieved as worse than eastern isnt too hard.

Eastern religions are ussually/mostly an ETHICAL CODE rather than a full on religion. Christianisty/Judaism/Islam are full on religions as in they have all kinda of crazy stories, gods demons and magic.

Sikhism/Hinduism has alot of that as well, i'd say a little less but thats arguable. Compare that to buddhism which has hardly any tall tales and is pretty much just an ethical code. There are some crazy stories in it too and is subject to extremism but not really. As well the rules for people are far less stringent than those places on monks which leads to fanatasism. And then there is confucianism which is purely philosophical teachings. There is no crazy magic or gods telling you what to do. They are just general guidelines that you should listen to simply because it worked for millions of people in the past. You should check it out too... The point being there is much more room for flexibility. And Taoism... hasnt done any major harm for a looong time its inherently less dangerous. Same with Shinto... they haven't done anything aside from decorate japan in hundreds of years.

So yes, eastern religions are far far less dangerous. I'd say most of the wars worldwide in the last 100 years could be attributed in part to the big 3 'western' religions.

The hole here is people who honestly and truly believe that evidence from a 3000 year old book (often poorly translated and frequently edited by various Powers that Be) trump evidence gathered by observation. These people take a conclusion: "The Bible is right", and go out to find evidence to support the conclusion. Totally the opposite of the scientific method but enough to be convincing to other people already predisposed to believing the original premise.

The point is that to a Biblical literalist there is no difference between science and religion. If a current scientific model contradicts what they believe happened according to the Bible, then the science is a) in conflict with their religion, and b) wrong. Not just wrong in a "Gee, I think this is guy is wrong, but I'll just ignore him and do my own thing" sort of way. Wrong in a "This man and the entire establishment that created him are evil, and must be fought at every turn" sort of way.

Compromise of the type you talk about here is reasonable, perhaps even sensible. It won't work. You can't separate religion from science in the minds of people who really believe in creationism. That's the essential problem, you can't separate anything from religion in their minds. The Bible is not a book of tales intended to teach moral lessons and instruct people in how to behave in order to receive God's blessing. It's a 100% factually accurate text handed to mankind literally by God, and it is THE authority on matter as diverse as moral judgment, scientific fact and historical events. It even tells the future! Whoo hoo.

On a side note, I swear if the Lafayette School Board makes these "supplements" available in there schools I will make it my mission to visit every biology class in the Parish to point out how every point is stupid. Except of course that it's probably illegal for me to do that.

How dare the State think that school boards should have any input on their schools curriculum? Its not the communities decision what their children should be learning.

If it ain't right by slashdot, then by god it shouldn't be taught!

No - I think that teaching science should be left to those who have expertise in science. TFA claims that such people oppose this bill. The whole reason we are getting into this mess is because schools are being forced to pander to what "the community" thinks should be taught.

Of course if the school board does their job right, this bill won't have any effect, but it paves the way for that possibility.

Seriously now, what's with all the hate at even the idea of a creator?

Okay, I'll bite: what hate?

But it also seems clear to me that believing that we are the result of neo-darwinism takes a leap of faith as great as believing in any "made up" Religion.

No, it doesn't. On the one hand we have something supported by vast amounts of evidence. On the other hand, stories that people can make up. Just because we can't prove anything with 100% certainty doesn't mean that all claims are equally plausible!

what's wrong with teaching children to discuss and god forbid, question popular *and* unpopular ideas. Isn't the real goal that children learn to think for themselves and make up their own minds?

Nothing as long as it's based on evidence, and god discussion is done in the appropriate class (i.e., philosophy or religious education, not science). There is no reason to pick out evolution specifically as needing "questioning", anymore than say General Relativity.

"No - I think that teaching science should be left to those who have expertise in science.

True, but are you saying that non-experts can't object? You laugh and make flat-earth jokes, but it used to be accepted science in the early 19th century that some races were superior to others. In the early 20th century, eugenics became standard fare in science circles, backed by all learned men, not just scientists. Scientists said eugenics was solid scientific truth, and so people from Woodrow Wilson to Margaret Sanger endorsed the theories in practice. Eugenics did't fall out of favor until people objected to it on moral grounds.

Humans are not machines... we do not (and truly, can not) judge all things on pure logic. There are other things we value. That's not an excuse to ignore scientific proof, but realize that, from past experience, even scientists have re-evaluated their ideas and found them wanting, even if they had good data behind them. Eugenics is an excellent example of this. Maybe we could build a super-pure, almost perfect race through breeding programs and forced sterilization of the "unfit". But we'd abandon our humanity in the process. Not all scientific issues should be settled on purely logical grounds. Not if you want to keep any semblance of free will.

Scientists and their allies don't want to hear this, but when it comes to the spread of knowledge, they have the same responsiblity as religious clergy do: they have to win hearts and minds. Simply declaring from the mountaintop "The data says this, and you will adjust your policies accordingly" is kind of a stupid thing to do with human beings, especially humans in free societies. Simply being told that they have to do something often provokes rebellion for rebellion's sake, even if, upon further reflection, they might have agreed with the scientist in the first place. If you're going to have a career in science, and you're committed to spreading that knowledge to everyone, then you're going to have to take on that missionary role. If you tell people "science says so, this is the policy, this is what will be taught"... well, your opponents are only going to dig in harder.

Part of the problem that modern scientists have is that they're so far apart from the rest of the population (in the US, anyway) on their world views. Most Americans are religious, and a huge chunk of them are deeply so. Mocking those people isn't going to help your case. When you try to convince them of a position, first tell them the truth... that you only deal in what can be proven and tested. That means that you tell the existence of God can't be proven via scientific evidence, not "there is no God, you peons". Frankly, you can't prove that either. Second, respect their beliefs, even if you don't agree. You're the minority here, by far, and so taking an authoritarian tone is only going to make things worse.

I have no hate at the *idea* of a creator; I hate the idea of people forcing *their* idea of a creator onto others.
I think what appears to be people hating the idea of a creator is actually people reacting to hundreds of years of another group of people forcing their idea of a creator onto others, often at the point of a sword or at the thread of being burned at the stake.

Isn't the real goal that children learn to think for themselves and make up their own minds?

Yeah, we should teach children to discuss and question popular ideas like the world orbits the sun. After all, surveys show a significant minority believes the sun orbits the earth! We shouldn't deny alternatives to the heliocentric model. We should study and debate them! Common sense observations contradict the tyrannical model imposed by "scientists". Let's open an honest debate on the matter. After all, it takes a great leap of faith to believe in the heliocentric model. Yet we have allowed this atheistic, naturalistic model to be accepted as "correct" and any other answer is "incorrect".

Further, by what right do the schools say "2 + 2 = 5" is "wrong"? Children should be able to explore alternatives to the popular theories of "math". It's religious discrimination as some believe that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1.

what's wrong with teaching children to discuss and god forbid, question popular *and* unpopular ideas. Isn't the real goal that children learn to think for themselves and make up their own minds?

Nothing wrong with that. But since *critical* thinking is to be encouraged, then the thoughts that must be encouraged are those that question the usually established "truths" in the child's community.

In the case of Louisiana, and other southern USA states, this means questioning religion, not science. In the case of the USA as a whole, this would also include questioning the idea that global warming might not exist or might not be caused by humans burning fossil fuels.

Critical thinking questioning science should only be encouraged in the scientific community itself, because that seems to be the only community where the scientific method is implicitly assumed to be correct. If the child has no idea of what the words "scientific theory" mean, to present arguments questioning any scientific theory will NOT cause any development of the child's critical thinking.

At least where I went to school, we were tought a thing, then that it didn't apply to all cases, we were encouraged to find other ways to solve things.

I even learned that common sense is often wrong.

The key point is that schools should teach people how to filter out bullshit, and scientific critical thinking is the only way to go. And there is absolutely nothing scientific about the "intelligent design" theory.

I don't think it is correct to call ID a philosophical construct or to teach it in a philosophy class. I think it would be more correct to call it a political machination and teach it in a class on modern US politics.

I don't think it is correct to call ID a philosophical construct or to teach it in a philosophy class. I think it would be more correct to call it a political machination and teach it in a class on modern US politics.

It's also interesting sociologically and psychologically, in that it represents of what happens when an irresistible force of scientific evidence meets the immovable object of faith.

No, it's philosophy. It's been taught in the philosophy classroom since the 18th century, since William Paley presented his "watchmaker" analogy.

It's not very good philosophy, though. In fact, it's really bad philosophy, but you need to know the mistakes of the past to avoid the same mistakes in the future. Which is why it is taught in the classroom.
(I say this as someone who spent four years studying philosophy--mostly philosophy of religion--and earned his bachelor's in the subject.)

"intelligent design" is not scientific,and definitely NOT a theory. Its a philosophical construct at best, and belongs in a philosophy class.

As a Creationist, I happen to agree with you 100%.

Creation Science is built around the idea that if you start with the Bible as the source of your hypotheses, you should be able to find scientific evidence that is consistent with those hypotheses. If the evidence instead contradicts your hypothesis, then either your evidence is flawed, your interpretation of the evidence is flawed, or your interpretation of the Bible is flawed.

Intelligent Design, in contrast, does not start from the premise that the Bible is a literal historical document, because that would mean religion is involved. Instead, ID simply says that life is too complex to have evolved spontaneously on its own, therefore God must have done it. On the surface this sounds similar to Creation Science (both say God did it), but ID doesn't bring anything falsifiable to the table.

The question of whether or not God (or the FSM or space aliens) caused a particular event is not testable empirically, even if it is true. Creation Science doesn't try to test God's involvement, only the actual physical events described in the Bible (for example, that there was a global Flood around 2,000 BC or so that wiped out all humans and animals that couldn't fit in a really big boat). It doesn't look at whether the events described in Genesis were really caused by God, only whether or not they occurred as described (and the mechanics behind how they occurred).

Creation Science doesn't try to test God's involvement, only the actual physical events described in the Bible (for example, that there was a global Flood around 2,000 BC or so that wiped out all humans and animals that couldn't fit in a really big boat). It doesn't look at whether the events described in Genesis were really caused by God, only whether or not they occurred as described (and the mechanics behind how they occurred).

And this is precisely why it isn't science. Creationism says "God did it" without any way to test it. The conclusion is pre-determined. I know you realize that it isn't science, but I still shudder when I hear people call it "Creation Science? ID is creation science. They're not just similar, they're the same thing. Intelligent Design is just a different name.

If you recall the book that stirred controversy and went to the supreme court Of Pandas and People was originally a creation "science" book, but when the 1987 ruling that banned the teaching of creation science, Pandas was edited, replacing all instances of "Creation" with "Intelligent Design." The concepts are exactly the same, the arguments are exactly the same. Even though Intelligent Design does replace the Judeo-Christian God with a "fill in the blanks with whatever you want to believe" entity, the people pushing it are the same people that pushed creationism.

Uh... you are comparing "Zero is a number" etc to "God exists"... axioms in Math and Science are "small". How does God exist? What are the scope of his powers? What is the density, length and colour of his beard? Does he have noodly appendages? Probably the most "controversial" axioms in Math (in the sense that they may not be self evident) are:
1. The parallel postulate (f a line segment intersects two straight lines forming two interior angles on the same side that sum to less than two right angles, then the two lines, if extended indefinitely, meet on that side on which the angles sum to less than two right angles.)
2. The axiom of choice (Let C be a collection of nonempty sets. Then we can choose a member from each set in that collection. In other words, there exists a function f defined on C with the property that, for each set S in the collection, f(S) is a member of S.)

In both cases, both axioms have been assumed both true and false to create their own sets of theorems (E.g. Euclidean geometry, which everyone knows (well..) vs. Non-euclidean geometry which is used in relativity etc... these differ on wether or not the parallel postulate is accepted)

Creation Science is built around the idea that if you start with the Bible as the source of your hypotheses, you should be able to find scientific evidence that is consistent with those hypotheses.

Typical case of religion interfering with rational thought. Scientist: "here's the facts, what conclusion can we draw from them?". Christian: "here's the conclusions, what facts can we find to support them?"

If the evidence instead contradicts your hypothesis, then either your evidence is flawed, your interpretation of the evidence is flawed, or your interpretation of the Bible is flawed.

You missed one - or the Bible is flawed. It's amazing that if you tell someone that the world's biggest desert is Antarctica, they might be sceptical and look it up, but if you tell someone some guy was born of a virgin, resurrected someone who was dead long enough to stink, fed 5000 people with a bit of bread and a fish, and made 300 pigs jump off a cliff, backed up by dubious morality like Lot leaving his daughter out to be raped and murdered and having drunken incest just to protect the angel Gabriel (who you would've thought could look after himself), killing gay people (that thing that occurs naturally as a result of pre-natal hormone irregularity), and handing the same fate to people who eat shellfish (mmm, mussels in garlic sauce. yum) they take it in a snap. Of course it happened! I know this, because I was indoctrinated with this bullshit when I was young and I haven't become mature enough to be openminded and consider if it's wrong!

"Creation Science" is a contradiction in terms, but if you are going to consider it, look up "creation myths" in wikipedia, because there's a few hundred other hypotheses which deserve equal attention before you go for the one that YOU were taught as a child. Hawaiians believe that the first animal on the planet was an octopus which is part of an alien race, and all life came from that. You need to put that on the same level as your Jesus hypothesis.

How do you think that Noah managed to get 2 of every one of the 250000 species of beetles into his boat? Let alone the 40000 species of frog. Those two would take the lifetimes of thousands of people, and we haven't even worked out a way to stop the lions eating the gazelles.

To put it bluntly, the "goddidit" meme is pure laziness. Rather than try to work out what happened, you leave it to scientists, then twist their words to try to fit their hard-found evidence into your convenient cop-out for performing actual rational thought.

If you can't imagine how selective use of facts can bias a conclusion, then you're just not very creative. Facts may stand on their own, but if you start with a conclusion and then try to support it with facts, you will find facts to support it. It is far better to form a hypothesis and try to falsify it, as in the scientific method. If all you look for are the supporting facts, then you're never going to find the contradictory ones.

Of course, you make the same mistake in your post. You say we should assume the bible is false and then look for facts that derive from it. That's not what the parent said, and it's rather dishonest of you to spin it that way. The parent said that we assume the bible is true and then look for contradictory evidence. As it turns out, there's plenty to be had.

If, as you say, we assume the bible is false and it proves nothing, then there's nothing it's disproven, either, which means that there's no supporting evidence. So, by your own argument, the bible is a failed hypothesis.

Finally, I'd like to point out that your phrasing, "science was true" is meaningless. Science is not something that can be true or false. It is a methodology, a way of thinking, if you will. Either it works or it does not. You can label individual ideas that came from the scientific method as true or false, but the methodology is neither.

Mind you, I'm being liberal with my use of language. I find it scary when people use big words like charlatan and modus ponens without knowing what they mean. Here's a hint: a charlatan would be someone who pretends to be familiar with logic by using jargon like "modus ponens" because he pretends to have a skill he does not have. Someone who defends science is not a charlatan simply because he has used bad logic.

1 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 "My lords," he said, "please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning."
"No," they answered, "we will spend the night in the square."
3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom--both young and old--surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."

6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7 and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."

That sure looks to me like the men of Sodom (all of them, too!) came to rape the angels at Lot's house, and Lot offered up both his virgin daughter for the mob to "do what [they] like with". Thats seems pretty much consistant with the GP's interpretation, I must say, despite a few minor errors (angel's name, one daughter not too, etc).

Moreover it's your assertion that the GP point that it's absurd to think 2 of every species fit on a boat because the bible says it was >=2 of ever

Kinda like claiming that Noah was instructed to put "two" of every "species" in an ark (got a source for either? didn't think so) (and following genesis quote)

Yes, I knew it was seven, but it wasn't really the time and place to bring up little-known facts about the bible. Fine. 7 just makes it even less plausible.

Lot "leaving his daughter out to be raped" as "morality" (got a source for either? didn't think so) or trying to save the "angel Gabriel" (got a source for that? didn't think so).

Genesis 19:8: "19:8 Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof." etc..etc.. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/19.html [skepticsan...dbible.com] You would've thought that a prophet charged with punishing the nasty gay people for their sins would set a better example than trading his daughters as collateral for his imaginary sky friend.

Only your laziness in attacking a book you haven't bothered to actually read.

Except that bit where I was forced to read it by a load of fundie teachers and do a GCSE exam on the subject, before joining a bible reading group.

if you came to one of my science classes and made so many basic errors in the first paragraph of your first test essay question, do you really think you'd pass?

Splitting hairs over the specific number of animals that boarded the ark is hardly a reasonable argument. If you're going to defend the story, supposed to be making the whole thing sound plausible, not say "haha, you didn't quote it verbatim".

Dear creationist,
Your phrase:" if you start with the Bible as the source of your hypotheses, you should be able to find scientific evidence that is consistent with those hypotheses" proves you do not understand one iota of the scientific method and are therefore not qualified to participate.
Science always tries to disprove a hypothesis, science is what is left of all hypothesis ever proposed that no one could disprove. Science is not soft on the facts,
and nothing is a fact until people agree there is no point denying it.
Picture yourself before heavens gate, Peter invites you to prove
creationism to go to heaven, but if yo fail you go to hell. Would
you take the challenge?

Instead, ID simply says that life is too complex to have evolved spontaneously on its own, therefore God must have done it.

Your troll-fu isn't all bad. You used the babel fish as bait, got some bites and even got modded up to +4 interesting. Well done.

The Babel fish is small, yellow and leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy recieved not from its own carrier but from those around it, It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. the practical upshot of this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any language.

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anthing so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes like this : "I refuse to prove that I exist", says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But", says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? it could not have evolved by chance. it proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

You are correct that both are beliefs. On the other hand, evolution makes predictions that can be tested. That gives us validation that it is valuable to believe it. ID does not make any predictions that can be tested, giving us no reason to believe it. That is the difference between science and religion.

To all you anti-evolutionists and everybody else that would like to ignore the facts: Life is like game of cards, and if you want your children to play with only half a deck the rest of the world will eventually eat you for lunch, no matter what you've got in military power.

Progress is based on facts, not on faith. If you don't believe that, then next time you go to hospital think where you'd be going *without* science but just your faith: the graveyard.

Yeah, but how are they going to generate the waves of stupid people we need to continue our way of life in this country? Guess what, education leads people to stop believing in this country. The more educated you become, the more you see the fundamental flaws. The more you see through the facade of the American Dream. Of course, then they pay you a lot and you stop worrying about all that:)

All I'm saying is, if Louisiana wants to screw itself, let them. What difference does it make to a dirt farmer if he's decended from monkeys? It's just going to make him that much more depressed, and make it that much more difficult for him to get up in the morning to tend his crops. LET PEOPLE BELIEVE IN CREATIONISM. It's ok if someone doesn't want to know everything. Just because you do, and see the logic, does not mean other people do.

If you want to be a doctor, guess what? Medical school is not going to take credits from a biology class with creationism on the syllabus. The guy who invented the styrofoam beer can insulator probably didn't believe in evolution. Yet miraculously, somehow, this great progress was made and our beer can be kept cold.

When the framers said "church and state" et al, they weren't talking about facts. Politicians lie all fricking day. They talk like their policy hurts no one when we all know that someone is the loser in EVERY transaction, be it monetary, social or otherwise. There is no happy medium. So, maybe having a poor class with no education that believes in creationism is the way to go? And if they want to sacrifice their public education dollars in that way, let them. I won't be one of them, but if they want to, god help them.

unfortunately religious bullshit is reaching far beyond dirt farmers and the pollution of science with faith is impacting other areas, such as pharmacists who are fighting for the right to withhold medicine from patients if they personally dislike it e.g. contraception.

if it spreads much further we might see things like police officers being able to refuse to investigate crimes against people they consider sinners. (on the other hand if it gets much worse America will collapse so hard people will realise why the 1st amendment was such a good idea in the first place.)

What difference does it make to a dirt farmer if he's descended from monkeys? It's just going to make him that much more depressed, and make it that much more difficult for him to get up in the morning to tend his crops.

Well a dirt poor arable farmer who doesn't believe in the malleability of species will stay a dirt poor farmer, however one who does believe in the malleability of species can selectively breed for better crops / livestock and become a dirt poor farmer with a rosette from the county show;)

More generally it is a waste the resources of a country not to educate the minds available to their greatest potential, every country fails at this but currently the US seems to be actively aiming for universal idiocy.

All I'm saying is, if Louisiana wants to screw itself, let them. What difference does it make to a dirt farmer if he's decended from monkeys? It's just going to make him that much more depressed, and make it that much more difficult for him to get up in the morning to tend his crops. LET PEOPLE BELIEVE IN CREATIONISM. It's ok if someone doesn't want to know everything. Just because you do, and see the logic, does not mean other people do.

You selfish bastard. Aren't you glad your parents and grandparents didn't feel like you do, now? Aren't you glad they didn't throw their hands up in the air when faced with utter idiocy, and instead decided that it was a cause worth fighting for?

The main point is that Science isn't about what you believe, it's about what you can (or cannot) PROVE. Teaching students otherwise is to deny them a basic grasp of what science is all about, and since Science is the cornerstone of modern civilization, you are denying them a proper place within society. Might as well beat them with sticks and call that "mathematics". The end result is an erosion of society, since society is nothing more than the effect of its population.

While poor folks tend to have poor parents, there are many, many, many exceptions to that rule. For example, Bill Clinton was born to a poor single mother, yet because of his high-quality education, he managed to become one of the top leaders in the world. His example is by no means unique, there are many, many others.

Turn your back on any of them, and you turn your back on ALL of them, since the more idiots in this world, the more idiots the learned have to combat in order to get anything done. At a certain threshold, nothing gets done and society collapses.

This is NOT ok, it is NOT acceptable, and it's NOT "them Louisianans". For example, even as a proud Californian, I still owe a significant amount of my life heritage to Alabama since I spent much of my childhood there. Louisiana and Alabama have many of the same problems being in the "bible belt" - point being, that PEOPLE MOVE.

Apathy? Thank you, NO. This is a big deal, it should be struck down due to separation of Church and State, and even them Louisiana students should be given a chance at understanding REAL SCIENCE.

All I'm saying is, if Louisiana wants to screw itself, let them. What difference does it make to a dirt farmer if he's decended from monkeys?

Uneducated people are weapons for dictators and extremists. The best defence we have against the rise of Hitlers, the British National Party, and all the others, is a well-educated population that can think for itself. Mass ignorance opens a population up to easy manipulation and there always seems to be someone ready to make use of them for personal gain. Believe me, you don't want scientific, historical and political ignorance in the US to become any more widespread than it actually is.

I'm considered by most to be highly educated, and I still believe in the American Dream as it were, largely because I have lived it. I went from homeless to middle/upper middle class by hard work, the way it's supposed to be done. Do not confuse the fact that our Government is horribly broken with the falsehood that America is broken. The spirit is still there, despite the best efforts of Government, Media, Academia, and Law to beat us down.

I am neither wealthy nor influential, nor do I think that is the American Dream. Being able to own a home and provide for one's family through hard work and self reliance without interference from an oppresive Government is the American Dream. Unfortunately many are confused and think it is what you seem to think it is. Equally unfortunate is that the dream IS being threatened by an increasingly insular and incestuous Government. Like I said...it's the Government that's broken, not the dream.

"So, maybe having a poor class with no education that believes in creationism is the way to go? And if they want to sacrifice their public education dollars in that way, let them. I won't be one of them, but if they want to, god help them."

The only problem with your reasoning is the possibility that they may outnumber you or outpower you or even outgun you. That is, most certainly, not a nice place to be.

Sadly there are people out there who, despite showing every indication that they are deep thinkers, arrive at the conclusion that science has never brought anything positive. Ben Stein for <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEKJPJQklzY">example</a>

Maybe the middle school atmosphere has changed significantly in the fifteen years since I set foot in a high school classroom, but I don't recall high school ever being a place for developing critical thinking skills. We did that in college, or just plainly after high school. High school is where interests are sparked, but creativity in its chaotic adolescent form is stifled and controlled - tightly regulated if you will. In high school, we memorize and regurgitate what the teachers and the school board expects us too. Taking fundamental scientific knowledge and muddying it with manufactured politically motivated controversies is very dangerous. Critical thinking does not exist without a firm grasp of fundamental knowledge.

Why not include legislation specifically allowing "critical thinking" about the holocaust, or "critical thinking" about democracy in history and social studies classes? Some good neo-Nazi and communist materials should be appropriate. And in health classes we can take time to teach about crystal healing.

I'm surprised they didn't suggest other topics in science that need some "critical thinking", such as the spheroidal Earth theory, the theory of gravity, and atomic theory.

This section of the proposed act is funny:

"D. This Section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion."

We don't have a religious motivation behind this, really!!

I'm sorry, but the thought that certain subjects in science (with a set of enumerated examples) need special attention from legislators in order to receive what they deem to be an appropriate level of "critical thinking" is very obviously motivated by politics and religion. I mean, why else would they be doing this? I'd be willing to bet that the current science curriculum already emphasizes the importance of building critical thinking into the understanding of science.

What this legislation is really about is providing a convenient legal pathway for pseudoscientific materials of any type to find their way into the classroom. And won't it be a nice surprise if, say, the Flat Earth Society is ready and willing to provide a glossy brochure, or textbooks for each and every student that they can take home if they like, in order to help out?

This is the same nonsense as Dover, Pennsylvania [wikipedia.org] all over again, with legislation behind it and a more thorough attempt to launder the effort of its actual intentions.

Here's a critical thought: maybe it isn't the best thing to allow a bunch of politicians to decide which subjects supposedly need a dose of "critical thinking" above and beyond what will already be in there as a matter of course.

topics that need critical thinking, as it cites scientific subjects 'including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning'

Right. And I'm glad we aren't limited to these, because I'd like to add my own little list:

- Government policies- Existence of Jesus- Development Aid- Love to the flag- Selective Religion- Comparative Religion- Nationalism- Capitalism- Sports as spectacle- War on drugs- News spinning- Education system

I'm sure many other topics can be added, much improving general education.

If the future of the US economy is to be based on intellectual property, then is doesn't bode well to teach the next generation to believe in fairy-tales. It's easy to sell science to the rest of the world, because it is of practical use. It's impossible to sell your faith to a world which already has plenty of bullshit superstitions.

I saw a couple of posts suggesting that people should be left to believe what they want. This is an incredibly dangerous proposition, and the reason that it must be rejected, even if said people don't try to push their false beliefs onto others, has been covered in depth in this classic piece that is, unfortunately, as much needed reading today as it was in the distant past when it was written: http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/w_k_clifford/ethics_of_belief.html [infidels.org]

NO ORLEANS, Friday (UNN) - The Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) was signed by Governor Bobby Jindal yesterday. The bill will allow local school boards to approve supplemental classroom materials specifically for the critique of controversial alleged "scientific" theories.

"The Act is intended to foster critical thinking," said Gov. Jindal. "We want the state Board of Education to assist teachers in promoting open and objective discussion of scientific theories including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

"Next, we'll work on classroom resources concerning the debates on the position of the Earth in the universe, whether Newton got it right, whether Democritus or Aristotle was correct about matter, and whether, in fact, the liver is the most important organ in the body. Then we'll get onto whether the 'periodic table' is just a Liberal conspiracy or fire, earth, air and water are a better fit for reality, and, of course, a critical examination of whether the so-called Holocaust happened or was a put-up job by the Jesus-killers."

Some have worried that the United States will fall behind in education, science and engineering and hence economic achievement. But the new bill comes in the wake of the vast successes of Faith-Based Mortgage Lending and its beneficial effects on the US housing market. "The replacement of the US dollar with rocks and small twigs as a more trusted and widely-accepted medium of exchange is merely a temporary blip," said Ben Bernanke, director of the Federal Reserve. "The hordes of Europeans flocking to New York for the cheap shopping and laughing as they give the bums Euro notes or pound coins are merely an optical illusion. The Faith-Based Security employed by the Transport Security Administration should deal with it conclusively."

Gov. Jindal looks at the move as an opportunity. "Louisiana will make America proud again. After the success of No Orleans' Faith-Based Levees in 2006, we'll impress the world again with our Penis Rocket To The Moon project. Or we would, except that we'll be advocating critical discussion of the Intelligent Stork theory of reproduction."

This makes me want to puke. Rita and Katrina screwed us up good, we're in no way rebuilt and this is what our legislature gives us. The same folks that damn near tripled their pay last week. I, for one, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster I don't have to worry about this as a teacher in a private school. My geography class starts out with the Big Bang, as does my world history class. If we're gonna talk God done dooed it, might as well talk Xenu, Inzanami and FSM...

Are topics like intelligent design and global warming, or for that matter astrology and palm reading, good topics to teach critical thinking? Of course. Topics like astrology and creationism have appeared in various editions of Fogelin's Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic. The problems are two-fold:

1. With local school board control, there is little incentive to teach children informal logic. Informal logic needs topics to dissect. Sure as hell, if the course shreds astrology, some child will have an astrologer parent who threatens to sue the school board. So why take the chance of teaching children to think critically about any social topic?

2. Obviously, the intention is not to introduce the opportunity to dissect intelligent design or global warming. The teacher who values his paycheck will know which way the wind blows. (See #1 above).

And that's democracy in the most vulgar sense. Teach them what the lowest common denominator demands they be taught.

Because they are not questioning evolution scientifically. They are categorically ignoring the MOUNTAINS OF EVIDENCE for evolution and saying things like "How can scientists really know how old something is?" and then never explaining in detail the chemistry and physics of radio-carbon dating. You hear things like "evolution is just a theory" without the correct addendum "and so is gravity".

Very very small mountains. More like molehills, compared to what we should have been able to find by now. What we have been unable to find is far more telling than what we have found. And given past indiscretions [wikipedia.org], it's difficult to see any current evidence as particularly trustworthy.

Piltdown man was suspicious from the start (see Miller's letter from 1915) and was debunked in 1953. A 50 year old fake hardly helps your case.

And as for evidence - have a glance at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ I think you might find a fair amount there. And a nice simple example can be found here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUxLR9hdorI

Radio-carbon dating is less accurate than using a random-number generator. It relies on far too many assumptions. There are other dating methods that are more likely to be close to the truth, although none of them have a particularly good track record.

How about dendrochronology, varves, ice cores, coral banding, thermoluminescence etc. Care to tell us why all these are wrong? And why they are all wrong by the same amount?

I can show you gravity in action, to your face, on video, and to crowds. Evolutionary theory is based on guesses and unproven scientific methods (such as radio dating), and fossil "evidence", which is circumstantial at best.

I can show you evolution in action too, look at Google Scholar for the origin of Spartina Anglica. I can point even more close to home - why do you think I need a new flu shot every year?

Oh, nice conflation of "evolution" and "theory of evolution" by the way.

You seem to be skeptical of a great many things. Thats the kind of person I'm looking for to buy my new book, "Theory of Intelligent Falling: Newton the False Idol".

You can show me gravity, but can you show me how it works? Is gravity a wave, particle or just a spacetime curvature. Show me your evidence of how gravity works and you'll have won me over! Where is your evidence for the scientifically explainable gravity? Can you scoop up some 'gravitons' for me? All you can do is predict how gravity functions most of the time.

The truth is, gravity is a function of the Jesus. Plain and simple, by declaring it a function of a higher power, we simply reduce the equations to "X==Y becuase the Jesus says so." The reason you can predict most of gravity is because the Jesus is pretty good at math and predictable of his application of Intelligent Falling. He sometimes screws up on larger scales though, explaining a few anomalies. Problem solved.

Very very small mountains. More like molehills, compared to what we should have been able to find by now. What we have been unable to find is far more telling than what we have found.

What have we been unable to find then?

Radio-carbon dating is less accurate than using a random-number generator. It relies on far too many assumptions. There are other dating methods that are more likely to be close to the truth, although none of them have a particularly good track record.

What's wrong with isochron dating? It only assumes that the isotope ratios in a rock don't change unless the rock melts. FWIW carbon dating is for archaeologists, not paleontologists.

I can show you gravity in action, to your face, on video, and to crowds. Evolutionary theory is based on guesses and unproven scientific methods (such as radio dating), and fossil "evidence", which is circumstantial at best.

Gravity is both a fact and a theory. The fact is clear to everyone, and the theory is fundamentally unresolved. You may think you understand the theory of gravity, but you do not.

And all historical sciences are based on circumstantial evidence, since we have no witnesses.

Evolution is more than science for many people - including scientists. It's becomes a religious belief, and those who hold it defend it emotionally - they are as closed-minded as those on the other side of the fence. Critical discussion about and examination of all things should be encouraged.

No. Both sides do not always have valid points- sometimes you're wrong. Stupid is stupid. It isn't "religious" just to call out stupidity when you see it.

Suggesting critical thinking and discussion isn't a bad thing. However, it's clear that the motivation is political. The original article analyzed some of the subject areas and the alternative theories; and found that there is a misrepresentation of scientific facts as well as of the theory of evolution. It's all very tainted.

Not well in Scotland, though possibly on the rise - there were a number of smallish religious parties at the last Holyrood election. It's possible that they're on the rise, though Scotland has a history of religious parties and independents (until the 50s Scottish politics was dominated by independents, and parties tended to be religious in flavour). My 10-year old niece goes to a (public, i.e. state-funded) Catholic primary school and is well aware of evolution, though that's possibly from her parents and

Here in Germany, everyone is allowed to think what they want, because we've had trouble with that one in the past (cf. Nazism [wikipedia.org] ). Kids are taught both religion and science in school (cf. German school system [wikipedia.org] ). Teachers present their view of the world, and audiences are free to interpret it in any way they like.

In the public media, there's no competition between religion and science. If a German watches Discovery Channel, for instance, s/he might notice a strong bias for uncriticial conveyance of perceived "scientific facts" and sensationalism. Native German TV programmes about science (*) often have a very differentiated view on things. Media bias is important in judging the information being broadcast.

There are some ID/creationism proponents in the Swedish Christian Democrat party, but they are usually silent on the issue, since they know that raising the issue will inevitably cause them to be laughed into the ground. That's what has happened those few times when one of them did that.

Don't forget that during the last government a Christian (CDA, van der Hoeven) secretary tried to force the ID-discussion upon the education system in the Netherlands. Thankfully there was outcry all over. Evolution isn't going anywhere fast on this side of the Atlantic, and the ID-discussion in the States is met with unbelief here.

We do have a whole different problem in Europe though, that of Muslim students not wanting/having to learn about evolution in religious schools.

Its happening everywhere, not just in the US. What we tend to find is that in the US these things make it into the public eye more easily.

It does worry me, this trend back to a less well informed age, but like most trends, it will probably change.

After all, The US was all but ready to disregard Darwinism and much of science in education just before Sputnik flew over and freaked everyone the fuck out.

We simply need to wait for the event that will prove the error in ignoring a progressive, scientific approach to education. I just hope it won't be too harsh.

My personal opinion is that it will come in the form of drastic economic and research decline as the older (and currently poorer) nations start to evolve to fill the gaps a US withdrawal from the field will create.

This sort of thing goes on all the time, The US went into the ascendancy with its scientific thinking when Germany and Europe went into decline in the late 18th early 19th century. Now that trend is reversing, with the more interesting work tending to occur in Europe.

Not that it's end game time for the US, it's still pretty strong academically. It's just that this strength is somewhat elitist, with the level of achievement required for success now being so high that people who would formally have moved to the US to advance their careers are choosing to stay at home or go elsewhere.

"My personal opinion is that it will come in the form of drastic economic and research decline as the older (and currently poorer) nations start to evolve to fill the gaps a US withdrawal from the field will create."

Some say this has already happened. Have you noticed how the US dollar has been replaced by rocks and small twigs as a more trustworthy and widely-accepted medium of exchange? Or how New York is filled with Europeans spending their depleted-uranium pounds and euros?

I seriously cannot stand this attitude. Science will not naturally prevail if the scientific community doesn't fight for it. We can't just sit back and let science defend itself. Science couldn't defend itself when the early Christian church burned the Library of Alexandria to the ground and killed the last living people who could read Egyptian heiroglyphics. Science couldn't defend itself when Al-Ghazzali started a fundamentalist movement in arabia that attacked the basic premise of cause and effect. The Christians were allowed to run amok and brought down the advanced Greco-Roman culture into the Dark Ages. The fanatical muslims were allowed to run amok in 1100 and brought the Islamic world into a dark age that is still persisting today.

At first, my instinct was to argue against you. But then, I thought about it a bit more and I realized I agreed with you. Religion does deserve to be treated more seriously in the American educational system. But it ought to be taught as such and it ought to be taught properly. Just as scientific and cultural knowledge contributed by the rest of humanity has so enriched our modern society, so should religious beliefs be accessible to everyone. We should offer equal time in the classrooms to Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and all the different varieties of African bush magic. It is high time that we Americans teach future generations that there is more than one way for a civilization to be civil. We should feed the curiosity and open mindedness of young students, not their deepest fears and apprehensions. Perhaps then, we would be a bit closer to having a bit less conflict around the world.
Have you figured out the head fake?

In science lessons, science should be taught. In some cases there might be more than one scientific viewpoint, but this is not the case when it comes to explaining the diversity of life on this planet.

Religion is a necessary part of any culture as is science and learning. Whether you accept it or not religion does play a big part in keeping civilizations civil in most cases.